Harley inclined his head sympathetically, and assisted to arrange Madame in her place.
“The Colonel requests us to smoke a cigar with him after dinner, Knox,” he said, glancing across to me. “It would seem that troubles never come singly.”
“Ah,” Madame shrugged her shoulders, which her low gown left daringly bare, “they come in flocks, or not at all. But I suppose we should feel lonely in the world without a few little sorrows, eh, Mr. Harley?”
I loved her unquenchable spirit, and I have wondered often enough what I should have thought of her if I had known the truth. France has bred some wonderful women, both good and bad, but none I think more wonderful than Marie de Stamer.
If such a thing were possible, we dined more extravagantly than on the previous night. Madame’s wit was at its keenest; she was truly brilliant. Pedro, from the big bouffet at the end of the room, supervised this feast of Lucullus, and except for odd moments of silence in which Madame seemed to be listening for some distant sound, there was nothing, I think, which could have told a casual observer that a black cloud rested upon the house.
Once, interrupting a tete-a-tete between Val Beverley and Paul Harley:
“Do not encourage her, Mr. Harley,” said Madame, “she is a desperate flirt.”
“Oh, Madame,” cried Val Beverley and blushed deeply.
“You know you are, my dear, and you are very wise. Flirt all your life, but never fall in love. It is fatal, don’t you think so, Mr. Knox?”— turning to me in her rapid manner.
I looked into her still eyes, which concealed so much.
“Say, rather, that it is Fate,” I murmured.
“Yes, that is more pretty, but not so true. If I could live my life again, M. Knox,” she said, for she sometimes used the French and sometimes the English mode of address, “I should build a stone wall around my heart. It could peep over, but no one could ever reach it.”
Oddly enough, then, as it seems to me now, the spirit of unrest seemed almost to depart for awhile, and in the company of the vivacious Frenchwoman time passed very quickly up to the moment when Harley and I walked slowly upstairs to join the Colonel.
During the latter part of dinner an idea had presented itself to me which I was anxious to mention to Harley, and:
“Harley,” I said, “an explanation of the Colonel’s absence has occurred to me.”
“Really!” he replied; “possibly the same one that has occurred to me.”
“What is that?”
Paul Harley paused on the stairs, turning to me.
“You are thinking that he has taken cover from the danger which he believes particularly to threaten him to- night?”
“Exactly.”
“You may be right,” he murmured, proceeding upstairs.
He led the way to a little smoke-room which hitherto I had never visited, and in response to his knock:
“Come in,” cried the high voice of Colonel Menendez.
We entered to find ourselves in a small and very cosy room. There was a handsome oak bureau against one wall, which was littered with papers of various kinds, and there was also a large bookcase occupied almost exclusively by French novels. It occurred to me that the Colonel spent a greater part of his time in this little snuggery than in the more formal study below. At the moment of our arrival he was stretched upon a settee near which stood a little table; and on this table I observed the remains of what appeared to me to have been a fairly substantial repast. For some reason which I did not pause to analyze at the moment I noted with disfavour the presence of a bowl of roses upon the silver tray.
Colonel Menendez was smoking a cigarette, and Manoel was in the act of removing the tray.
“Gentlemen,” said the Colonel, “I have no words in which to express my sorrow. Manoel, pull up those armchairs. Help yourself to port, Mr. Harley, and fill Mr. Knox’s glass. I can recommend the cigars in the long box.”
As we seated ourselves:
“I am extremely sorry to find you indisposed, sir,” said Harley.
He was watching the dark face keenly, and probably thinking, as I was thinking, that it exhibited no trace of illness.
Colonel Menendez waved his cigarette gracefully, settling himself amid the cushions.
“An old trouble, Mr. Harley,” he replied, lightly; “a legacy from ancestors who drank too deep of the wine of life.”
“You are surely taking medical advice?”
Colonel Menendez shrugged slightly.
“There is no doctor in England who would understand the case,” he replied. “Besides, there is nothing for it but rest and avoidance of excitement.”
“In that event, Colonel,” said Harley, “we will not disturb you for long. Indeed, I should not have consented to disturb you at all, if I had not thought that you might have some request to make upon this important night.”
“Ah!” Colonel Menendez shot a swift glance in his direction. “You have remembered about to-night?”
“Naturally.”
“Your interest comforts me very greatly, gentlemen, and I am only sorry that my uncertain health has made me so poor a host. Nothing has occurred since your arrival to help you, I am aware. Not that I am anxious for any new activity on the part of my enemies. But almost anything which should end this deathly suspense would be welcome.”
He spoke the final words with a peculiar intonation. I saw Harley watching him closely.
“However,” he continued, “everything is in the hands of Fate, and if your visit should prove futile, I can only apologize for having interrupted your original plans. Respecting to-night”— he shrugged— “what can I say?”
“Nothing has occurred,” asked Harley, slowly, “nothing fresh, I mean, to indicate that the danger which you apprehend may really culminate to-night?”
“Nothing fresh, Mr. Harley, unless you yourself have observed anything.”
“Ah,” murmured Paul Harley, “let us hope that the threat will never be fulfilled.”
Colonel Menendez inclined his head gravely.
“Let us hope so,” he said.
On the whole, he was curiously subdued. He was most solicitous for our comfort and his exquisite courtesy had never been more marked. I often think of him now— his big but graceful figure reclining upon the settee, whilst he skilfully rolled his eternal cigarettes and chatted in that peculiar, light voice. Before the memory of Colonel Don Juan Sarmiento Menendez I sometimes stand appalled. If his Maker had but endowed him with other qualities of mind and heart equal to his magnificent courage, then truly he had been a great man.
Chapter 17 NIGHT OF THE FULL MOON
I stood at Harley’s open window— looking down in the Tudor garden. The moon, like a silver mirror, hung in a cloudless sky. Over an hour had elapsed since I had heard Pedro making his nightly rounds. Nothing whatever of an unusual nature had occurred, and although Harley and I had listened for any sound of nocturnal footsteps, our vigilance had passed unrewarded. Harley, unrolling the Chinese ladder, had set out upon a secret tour of the grounds, warning me that it must be a long business, since the brilliance of the moonlight rendered it necessary that he should make a wide detour, in order to avoid possible observation from the windows. I had wished to join him, but:
“I count it most important that one of us should remain in the house,” he had replied.
As a result, here was I at the open window, questioning the shadows to right and left of me, and every moment expecting to see Harley reappear. I wondered what discoveries he would make. It would not have surprised me to learn that there were lights in many windows of Cray’s Folly to-night.
Although, when we had rejoined the ladies for half an hour, after leaving Colonel Menendez’s room, there had been no overt reference to the menace overhanging the house, yet, as we separated for the night, I had detected again in Val Beverley’s eyes that look of repressed fear. Indeed, she was palpably disinclined to retire, but was
